Hardwell ghost produced Beatport Top 10 track

In a recent interview to Australian inthemix.com.au, DJMag’s #1 DJ Hardwell claimed that he ghost produced a current beatport top 10 track: “The funny thing is that nobody knows I have a current Beatport Top Ten hit with a track not under my name, a track that I ghost-produced, and nobody’s noticing it. But if people listen closely to the top ten, for sure they’re gonna hear which track it is.”

Revealed Recordings explained to EDMtunes that this interview was done some time ago and only recently surfaced and this track is no longer on the Beatport Top 100. Which track do you think has been ghost produced by Hardwell?

“I’m fine with ghost-producing,” Hardwell said, “but then again I don’t like it when…if you’re not producing your own tracks then just be honest, say ‘you know what, I’m a good DJ but I can’t produce my own songs, I got help,’ I think that’s fair. Because honestly, you can hear it, because every single track sounds totally different. Everybody knows in the scene who works with ghost-producers.”

How Does Ghost Production Work?

In a sense, ghost DJing is a loose concept, encompassing the engineering and composition a DJ’s track may have to full-on creation. Any “help” a producer may receive, then, qualifies as ghosting.

“Whether it’s an engineer whiz kid who can finish off a good idea, a sound designer who makes incredible synth lines, or a full-fledged ghost producer there are a ton of people involved,” Alex Vickers explained in Magnetic in May 2012. “There’s a huge amount of man hours that go into a professional sounding song, there’s so many facets of production that it’s borderline impossible to be a master of everything. There’s the sound design, melody writing, drum programming, recording vocals, arrangement and any other lose ends. And there’s the mixing and mastering stage, which is just as much an art form as the production itself.”